Stilly, why not let the rotation of the Earth work for you? Tie the dogs outside facing the direction opposite the rotation of the Earth. They'd have to trot to stay in one place, like they were on a treadmill.

Strange. I have the feeling that Shatnerization is looming up, just around the corner.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Neither came first. One day, long ago, a little adult dinosaur poked his head out of his hole and said to himself, "Well, I think I'll evolve into a chicken today." This was a noble and worthy goal, so he climbed out of his hole, closed his eyes, and concentrated very, very hard on becoming a chicken.

Suddenly, his scales enlongated and POOF! suddenly they were feathers! His nasty little teeth and lips became pointed and hard and became a beak. He knew he was halfway to becoming the Pride of KFC!

However, muttering to himself like he'd been doing had attracted the attention of a prowling Allosaurus, which ate him as a snack on her way to the rotting carcass of an Apatosaurus.

What we call "chickens" are actually miniature polled elk. What we call "eggs" are actually seperate creatures which appear spontaneously under miniature polled elk.

Why publish something that is so painfully obvious as that the egg came before the chicken?

For christ's sake, there were eggs around for millions of years before chickens every walked on this planet. The chicken and the various other birds were apparently ancestors of the dinosaurs, who were themselves ancestors of primitive amphibians, who were themselves ancestors of primitive fish, etc.....

I've already explained all that! Geez, don't you guys ever read? I searched out The Truth at great cost and terror to myself to publish The Truth but no, nobody believes me, nobody WANTS The Truth today!

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! Amos and everybody is being mean to me!! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! Make 'em be nice, Mom!

BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhuanet) -- New studies suggest that science-fiction portrayals of invisibility, such as Harry Potter's cloak, might be truly possible.

Inspiring the new research is a type of material known as "metamaterial." Metamaterials have special properties because they are built with internal structures small enough to interact with light or other radiation. This allows scientists to build devices that can do things, such as bending light, in unique ways.

Two separate teams of researchers have come up with theories on ways to use experimental metamaterials to cloak an object and hide it from visible light, infrared light, microwaves and perhaps even sonar probes.

"Imagine a situation where a medium guides light around a hole in it," Ulf Leonhardt, a physicist of Britain's University of St. Andrews, reported in the journal Science.

The light rays end up behind the object as if they had traveled in a straight line.

"Any object placed in the hole would be hidden from sight. The medium would create the ultimate optical illusion: invisibility," Leonhardt wrote. "Such devices may be possible. The method developed here can be also applied to escape detection by other electromagnetic waves or sound."

In this new theory, which is from that used on modern "stealth" bombers, which bounce radar off their surfaces so they cannot be seen, an object would be encased in a shell of metamaterials and they would create an illusion akin to a mirage, said David Schurig of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on a second report, which also appears in the latest Science journal.

"Think of space as a woven cloth," Schurig said. "Imagine making a hole in the cloth by inserting a pointed object between the threads without tearing them."

The light, or microwaves, or radar would travel along the threads of the cloth, ending up behind the object without having touched it.

Oh that old periscope is no fun. People can see ya using it. When Mister La French saw me looking over his hedges yesterday he said he was gonna shoot me. That's why I need an invisibility cloak. I guess he didn't want his wife to know about the baby he was making with that UPS lady.

Have you noticed that there are now over 251 pages to the Book of MOAB? Page upon page of wit, grace, intelligence, and information completely unavailable elsewhere. Poetry and wisdom, prose and jibes, science and speculation -- offerings from Khandu and Tweed and Peace and SRS and Bee-Dubya-Ell and Joe Offer and 'most ever Catter. Even from Wienerhead Amos.

Amos, I would never disparage you. I tell everyone I know that you are without question the single most intelligent, witty, and best looking person I have ever met. Well-read, wise, informed, erudite, reasoning, cogitative, thoughtful, understanding, discerning, sensible, prudent, pansophistic, and blessed with a sapience beyond the ken of mortal man: faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall building with a single bound, and who, with his beloved dog "Yukon King" and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, brings Truth, Justice, and the American Way to the snowy Yukon.

And I myself am but a humble public servant, one who makes but a pitiful attempt to provide to others that which may or may not supply their informational, educational, and recreational wants here in this vast cultural desert that is Eastern Idaho. I am nought but a mote of dust in bathed in Amos' nova-like brilliance, the poorest of worms that he would trample underfoot with nothing but a "Yuck! What's that on my shoe?", scrape me off, and continue on.

No, no, forget about me. Just leave me a rusty saw and a bullet to bite on while I cut off my legs. Don't let me detain you. I'll hold 'em off, but remember me to that Kid down in Louie's Bar. She's a good kid and deserved better than me. And (koff! koff!) mail this letter to my mom for me, willya? I ain't seen her in twenny years and I want her to have my last pay. Poor old woman, raising six kids on four acres, plowin' the field before she went to work pickin' coal in a two-foot seam for Mr. Peabody. And...and...Amos? Tell MOM my last thoughts were of her and not to cry 'cause I doin' this for America.

And that's because I come from humble stock. Born as I was into a little log cabin I built myself, we had nothing to eat for months on end but borrowed food. We'd pass it down in the family, each of us chewing it a bit, until the youngest actually got to swallow it. It was a hard life, but we grew up strong and straight, all of us good Americans, upright and honest, mostly. Why, I never saw television until I was well into my thirties, and as for radio, well, we'd heard about it. Yes, we'd talk about Jack Benny and The Shadow with our classmates at the exclusive St. Dismas School (we worked our way through mucking out sewers, because we knew the value of a good education) just as if we actually had a radio because youth is resilient. And being able to talk about things we knew nothing about has served us in good stead, as my brother is now an Alderman.

The idea that Rapaire would stoop to stealing phrases from traditional songs of any genre, and not identifying the sources he used, is...well, titllating, but I am sure he is quite above such shenanigans today.

Dang right! Old Sarge said that to me just after he'd run naked through a minefield because he thought he was faster than the explosions. And he was, too, only he was also chewing on his cigar butt at the time and swallowed it. This caused him to realize that running naked through a minefield while chewing on a cigar butt was a pretty dumb thing even for him to do, especially since he had to slow down to throw up. Slowing down allowed the explosions to catch up to him and even pass him, so he lost the hundred bucks he bet on himself.

Yessir, ol' Sarge Rock. His real name was Percival, but we all called him Sarge Rock, mostly because he was dumber'n a rock. Ran into him a while back outside the Legion Hovel in Boise ("Broke-dick Mammalucca Post Number 1"), but even though I backed up and hit him again he wasn't hurt, darn it.

Well, I haven't watched the program much lately (my son is a deer in the headlights in the mornings if the tv is on) but Katie Couric is leaving the Today show today. They're playing some cute clips. Too bad Shatner doesn't have such charisma.

Hello!!!!!!Said this before but the goddess mention desersves another mention.......Blowing smoke into the smoky room, fills the sky and drifts away like a random thought.The Goddess within can hear it all. She stoops and listens carefully.She didn't want to miss anything. She thought she heard a giggle but missed the punchline.I will help you if you let me.You will help yourself if you let you.She was in the gray zone, she could walk through the mirror if she wanted.The smoke filled the room and she lit another cigarette.She's stronger than she knows, she is. She just has to look into the other side of the mirror. Walk right in there, she thought. Take a look inside the inside.The goddess was revealed just thinking about it.The thought drifted with the smoke and twirled around the giggle. Than she remembered, she did get the punchline.

Brother Rapaire has had about five hours sleep and is probably going to blow off today's budget discussion -- let his number 2 take it. The train Bro. Rapaire was in SLC to put his in-laws (and wife) on was an hour and half late, getting in at 4:45 a.m. instead of leaving at 3:45 a.m. Brother Rapaire is sitting in his room at the Comfort Inn, trying to get up enough energy and in-room coffee to start the day and the drive back, while plotting how to avoid rush hour traffic. And Brother Rapaire is danged glad that his in-laws don't visit often, 'cause his MIL won't fly and the train schedules SUCK!!!

Hi Mom! I'm home. Communicado was loverly - but a wee bit hot. And I only took the afghan, forgot the light-weight sheet. don't try to sleep with a heavy afghan over you when it's 94 degrees out and the humidity is high. Even when you get to sleep you wake up dehydrated. and stinky from sweat.

Other then that, the long weekend was great. Scenery nice; lots of purty flowers on the roadsides - and the locusts were blooming (the trees. Didn't see any of the hoppy kind) All 580 kids in my nephews class graduated; 50% of them with honors. pretty impressive.

I drove by the lake - but they are now using it as a cooling pond for the solar energy tower - and the steam rising from the waters just didn't look very inviting. though the fishermen said that the trout were being poached perfectly.